Mainly, that I eat up both programs with a spoon. They are both so light, so fresh, so speedy and zeitgeist-y. They are both addicting. When I watch either show, I am drawn in so quickly because the dialogue drops so fast and there are tons of in-jokes. Oh, and there's so much eye candy each scene is popping with it. Four friends take on L.A., much like four friends taking on NYC.

Only different.

Boys will be boys, right? I mean, Entourage is very obviously created to appeal primarily to a straight male audience, with all its t&a and constant video game playing. Yet still, it manages to appeal to a "sophisticated" lady like me...not to toot my own horn here, but I think that has something to do with how smart the show is.

Those four guys, Vince, Eric, Turtle and, of course, the luggish Drama, are so danged believable. We all know crews of dudes that are just like them and operate just like them. It's fun to be "in" with a group of friends like that, just as it was when Sex and the City was on and I loved watching the gals sit around the coffee shop table exchanging witticisms.

The amount of Hollywood culture present in the show also acts as an addicting draw. As with the city of New York on Sex and the City, Hollywood is a character on Entourage. Entourage never talks down to its audience. The writers deftly presuppose we as viewers are either bursting ourselves with pop culture and film industry knowledge, or that we are willing to be dragged along for a kamikazi crash course.

And then there's Ari.

Played to perfection by Jeremy Piven, who has at last found a role into which he can intelligently channel his frenetic-bordering-on-overboard- energy, Ari has no real comparison. It's to Piven and the writers' credit that it's easy for me to empathize with a guy who displays all his distasteful simpering and relentless workaholic-ism so boldly. He is redeemed by the love he has for his family and the way relishes his job so completely.

Entourage Season 3 is now out on dvd, and like many of us suffering in the purgatory-like cable-less world, I immediately devoured disc 1 via Netflix. Now I have to wait seemingly endlessly (but more like two days) for disc two...reminds me of waiting for Season 6 Part 2 of Sex and the City....